Pickles and Alum QUestion

RECIPE FORUM General Chat
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I was looking at some recipes for making home made pickles and this caught my eye.

A lil history first:

My mother each summer planted a lot of cucumber mound in our large garden, she used some fresh in salads and trhe rest she made into so very good pickles. She made 14 day pickle tha took, crazy as it seems, fourteen days to make LOL. THe first seven days she socked the sliced or cubed cucumbers in a mixture of Salt, and Alum and water. Each day she skimmed the scum off the top or poured off the water and mixed fresh until the seven days were up. She then drained the cukes and made mixture of Cider Vinegar,sugar, pickling spices and put the soaked cukes in this, Each day she removed the cukes and reheated the mixture and topped it off if needed At the end of the second seven days she would taste test a chunk of the pickles and if satisfied it got hectic as she ahd me running to get canning lids,if she ran short, bringing the jars up from the absement and then me and my brother helped her pack the pickles in the jars. I did the packing MOm poured the hot juice ovre them right to the top and my brother put a lid on each jar, wied it off and sat it aside to seal.
At no time did she use the first liquid in the final packing.

Now I know that Alum is powdered Aluminum and when something is soaked in it it get crispy. That is what the salt and ALum d to the cukes.

I also know that many claim that Aluminum cookware or drinking vesels, like beer/soda can have a small amount of aluminum dissolved in the liquid and along with what is scraped off trhe bottoms of skillets or saucepans during cook can and does casue irreversable brain damage.

If this is true, why would anyone use the alum/slat brine as a final packing solution for the pickles they worked hard to grow and then process? Isnt this asking to wind up just like the Cucumbers, A Vegitable!!

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oh yippy~took me 12mins. to get to this ‘post a reply’

Aluminum is everywhere. In fact, its the most common mineral found on earth. Its abundant in our soil. It in the trees, the grasses, everything you eat, from animals to vegetables. Even your body has a stored supply.
Several years ago (like over a decade), it was found that Alzheimer pateints had increased levels of aluminum in their brains. This created a scare, linking aluminum to Alzheimers. Well, its now known that the concentration of aluminum in their brains is coz of the body’s immune system response to their Alzheimer’s (although we still don’t understand why).
And just so ya’ know, that glass of water ya’ drank, probably has more aluminum in it that any aluminum can may have.

And, yeah, I know MSG has a bad rep. Just let me say, if anyone can ever come up with any repeatable proof that MSG is unhealthy, they will probably win a Nobel Prize, coz NOONE has yet !